


Is This What Love is Really For? (Act II)

by actingwithportals



Series: We Are Wide Awake Now [7]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hornet is still angry, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mid-Canon, Mild Language, Minor Violence, WL still not out here winning any mom of the year awards, as she should be, it'll get better eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actingwithportals/pseuds/actingwithportals
Summary: Hornet had always been told that the Vessels were empty. That even ones who were impure were still without consciousness worthy of care. Perhaps part of her even wanted to believe that.But when a little ghost returned to Hallownest and challenged that very notion, she quickly realized that not everything was as she had been taught.And maybe that made her a monster.
Relationships: Hornet & White Lady (Hollow knight)
Series: We Are Wide Awake Now [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740406
Comments: 29
Kudos: 151





	Is This What Love is Really For? (Act II)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, folks; this is a shorter piece today, but I hope you still find it satisfying and worth the read. This took me a while to finish, and I think most if not all of us are pretty aware that there's a lot going on in the world right now. This has delayed me, and might still continue to delay me. I'm finding it hard to focus for long on writing fanfic when there are other things happening in my immediate surroundings that need my attention, and I'm sure a lot of you might be feeling the same way.
> 
> Not here to soapbox, but I think what's currently happening is something we all need to step back and look at for a bit. Educate ourselves, help where we can, listen where we need to be silent.
> 
> I hope you are all safe. I hope you are all well. And for those directly affected, I hope your voices are heard, as they always should have been.
> 
> That being said, I hope that you are all able to find some comfort in the little things when you need to take a step back and recharge. Whether it's reading fic, listening to soothing music, watching your favorite show, or sharing a meal with loved ones.
> 
> Please look after yourselves and your community. You are all loved, but right now I especially want to emphasize this for the black community. I'm with you, I'm listening, I love you.
> 
> Take care.

_She lied._

Infected Mosskin fell before her with barely more than a single thrust of her needle or slice of her silk. Though the Queen’s Gardens had become overrun as of late with the husks of Unn’s creations and the traitorous Mantises alike, they did not inhibit Hornet’s path. Not when she was so determined to reach her destination.

_She lied. She lied she lied she lied she lied._

With a throw of her needle that had been perfected by countless years of practice, Hornet propelled herself forward over thorns and brambles and creeping creatures too insignificant for her to waste her efforts dismembering. She’d taken enough time as it were bypassing Deepnest on her way from the Ancient Basin, having to cut through the Royal Waterways, Fungal Wastes, and Fog Canyon instead, adding hours to her trek that she did not have to spare.

Hornet had promised herself she would not return to these Gardens, to once again face the Queen who dwelled within them.

But she had already broken so many promises by now, hadn’t she?

The world blurred past her in wavy hues of greens and pale light until she abruptly dropped to the Garden’s floor once more, having stopped at the point just before her destination.

She had not been the first to come to this place.

Bodies littered the path towards the cocoon where the White Lady dwelled; soldiers of the Traitor Lord strewn about in merciless slaughter, leaking infection and hemolymph in equal parts.

Their executioner lay just as dead amongst them.

Not once had Hornet hesitated since the start of her journey from the Ancient Basin, and she had half a mind to not falter now. But the sight of the slain Knight before her gave Hornet pause, and without realizing she suddenly found herself kneeling before her, bowing her mask in . . . what? Pity? Sorrow?

_How many faces from her past would she lose before the world decided enough had been enough?_

Hornet shook her head, rose once again to her feet, and proceeded towards the cocoon. She had not come for melancholy today.

Her purpose was fury.

The pale light that filtered through the passages of the White Lady’s prison had not dimmed since her last visit to this place, but where that light had previously given Hornet nausea it now filled her with something far more dangerous.

_She lied._

Hornet sensed her before she entered the centermost room, that calming air that tugged softly against her mind, attempting to lull her into something more docile. It wouldn’t work. Not today. Not after what she had seen. If the White Lady hadn’t yet realized this, she soon would.

“The Gendered Child returns to me,” the Lady spoke as Hornet stepped into the room, her voice as soft as the first day Hornet met her all those years ago; well beyond a lifetime having passed since then. How often had that voice soothed her in times of distress when her own mother had not been present to ease her fears, sang to her songs of life and light and growing things until the world felt safe and whole again.

Had those moments been lies too?

“It has been an age since we last spoke,” Hornet said dryly. “I should hardly qualify as a child in your mind any longer.”

“Someday my light may flicker and diminish, and even then you would still be _my child_ ,” the White Lady responded, as if they were still familiar, as if she had _the right_.

How insufferable.

“Do you delude yourself into believing I am still something you can claim, or are your words framed with the intention to spite me?” she asked, irritably realizing that keeping her tone anywhere below a snarl was going to be a challenge she hadn’t the patience to face.

“I have never meant you any malice,” the White Lady whispered. “For you, I have only wished peace.”

Hornet could have laughed, _should have_ , if the action could be guaranteed to cut the Lady as deeply as the words had cut her. But instead she tried to keep her voice even and cold, detached in a way that she hoped hurt far worse than any wound of sarcastic dismissal she could otherwise muster. “Did you decide that before or after you stood by and let my mother be put to sleep? Let my father seal her away with the sibling that you damned to a fate that they are doomed to be consumed by? Or did you not decide until you urged me to slay whatever family I might have left who could not meet your standards of purity? Was it then?”

She hadn’t noticed when her voice began to rise, hadn’t realized the quivering in her limbs was a response to the anger that had started to boil over and not a result of the exhaustion of her journey. But when the roots at the White Lady’s base seemed to instinctively curl inwards – whether in shock, disapproval, or fear, she did not care – Hornet suddenly became aware of how tightly she was gripping her needle, of how she had stepped forward further into the room as if in threat, how she glared upwards to the only family she had left and realized she felt nothing but contempt and hatred for her.

No, not the only family left.

“I’ve seen them,” Hornet said, lowering her voice once again to the emotionless regularity she had tried to use from the start. “Other Vessels. There is one that yet lives, and it seeks to fulfill the duty you have set for it.”

The White Lady dipped her head, the crown of her roots creaking with the movement. “If it is pure enough to withstand that task, it will have my blessing.”

“Only it is _not pure_ ,” Hornet snapped, whipping her needle in an arc before her as if to emphasize her point. Judging by the cloudiness of the White Lady’s eyes, she could likely no longer see the action, but she could at least feel the breath of her blade. So much for that collected calm. “The Vessel possesses enough of a mind to consider choices and make independent decisions based on the information presented before it. It can think.”

“My Wyrm had spoken many times of such impurities being a possibility,” the White Lady said quietly, almost in a mutter. “A fault of the Void not entirely driving out what might have once been a part of something living.”

“But _it is living!_ ” Hornet shouted, taking another step forward. “I have observed it and followed it for weeks, seen it engage with the few bugs that still remain in this place, struggle in battles against foes nearly beyond the match of its nail, felt it reach for me in search of something a dead or empty thing would not require nor give in return, in search of _comfort_.”

“You are deceived by your longings, Child,” the White Lady interrupted. “Even an impure Vessel is still comprised of Void; it cannot feel deeply enough to seek affection.”

“ _You weren’t there._ ” Her voice had dropped dangerously low, and a small part of her mind that dared to remember things better off forgotten thought with a swell of pride that something in her tone sounded so much like her mother. “You did not see how they looked to me, how they took my hand and held it as if something within them could dare to provide me warmth. You did not ever see it in Hollow in all of their years spent with us and you refuse to see it now, because if you acknowledge what they are that would mean acknowledging how you _damned_ your own children to suffer for their existence and they have felt _every moment of it._ ”

If the White Lady had noticed the change from “it” to “they”, she did not correct her. Rather instead of responding her roots recoiled as if they had been struck, and it wasn’t a mere small amount of satisfaction that Hornet felt at the sight.

If her words could hurt the White Lady with even a fraction of how much pain she had learned at the hands of Pale Beings, Hornet would consider the blow a worthy effort.

“They are living,” she repeated, taking a breath to steady her voice that was now so close to threatening a tremble. “Perhaps not in the same manner as bug or beast but they live enough to desire and that is far more than what you or the Pale King ever considered for them.”

The White Lady still did not respond and had instead grown so still that not even her branches swayed in an unfelt breeze.

“If this one is alive then it is not unlikely that the rest were as well,” Hornet continued. “If Hollow failed so easily then there is no other explanation besides that they were alive too, maybe still are and living through every moment of containing the Radiance, fighting a battle they are destined to lose.”

The room groaned softly as the White Lady’s crown lowered further, but still she did not speak a word.

“That other one must have been alive,” Hornet added quietly, her fire finally burning out in the chill of her realization. “They ran from me in such haste and I thought it nothing more than instinctual, but they must have been afraid. They could not withstand my challenge not because they were weak but because they were scared, and I did not comfort them.”

When had her limbs begun to shake again? When had her voice become so frail, where moments before it had been strong?

“They must have still been a child,” she whispered. “Smaller than even that little ghost. A frightened, younger sibling, and I hunted them down and killed them.”

The moment after her legs gave out, she did not rise to correct her weakness. She did not reach out for the needle that lay uselessly at her side, leaving her unguarded and defenseless. And when a pale root tentatively brushed against the side of her mask, wiping away the moisture that had begun to build in the corner of her eye, she did not fight against it.

There were no other mothers left to hold her, only a lie that did not even grant her the comfort of spoken reassurances. Empty gestures that left her feeling colder than if she had given nothing at all.

This place had nothing left to provide, the Being imprisoned within nothing left to give.

On shaky legs, Hornet rose to her feet, picking up her needle and quietly sheathing it on her back. “The Vessel will soon discover what they must do to complete their task. I will wait for them at my mother’s side when the time comes for them to take her.”

“You do not have to stand alone, Child,” the White Lady spoke, her voice barely more than a whisper in the breeze.

Hornet turned away, beginning to walk back to the entrance of the cocoon. She did not pause in her steps nor did she look back once more as she answered, “I have stood alone far longer than I have stood with others. If I needed anyone to stand with me now, it would not be someone who has long-since given up that fight.”

If the White Lady had an answer for her, Hornet did not wait long enough to hear it.

It was time she went home.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1 This piece helped me develop a lot of what's going to come in future stories regarding certain characters ;3c  
> 2 The killed vessel mentioned here is the Greenpath Vessel, in case anyone wasn't clear on that  
> 3 This takes place almost immediately after Estranged and All Alone Act II, from Hornet's perspective
> 
> Thank you to those who beta-ed this for me, and for all those in the discord server who were very encouraging about it last night! You guys are the real MVPs.
> 
> There will be one more pre-canon / mid-canon piece before we get back to the present day of the series (I hope).
> 
> If you enjoyed this please leave a comment! Encouragement helps fuel my writing brain.


End file.
